


every day dressed in gold, I go home

by scarecrowes



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Tetralogy - Thomas Harris
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Married Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 12:00:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/785825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarecrowes/pseuds/scarecrowes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will's nightmares never stop altogether, but he does have help in handling them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	every day dressed in gold, I go home

**Author's Note:**

> This fandom needs more Molly. And more happy, not-horribly-tormented Will, in general. Just saying.

Will's dreams are inky and loud, long ways past unfamiliar. A man's voice follows him through a dim hallway full of paintings; twisted bodies with their stomachs opened, hearts missing. Bosch, he thinks distantly. Or Bacon. 

_Do you remember us, dear Will?_

He's woken up by his name and the hands on his shoulders. Molly's hair is a sun-shocked tumble of boating knots around his face. 

(She turned the lights on first. He doesn't say anything about it.)

"You were crying in your sleep." She'll never be able to hide the concern in her voice and never tries to - it bleeds over from her eyes alone, swallowing him, rooting him to the mattress and her hands. He's tempted to lean up and kiss her, but he's sticky with sweat through his shirt and the sheet like he hasn't been in ages. 

"Sorry, babe." He isn't embarrassed, doesn't try to pull away even though he sounds choked. She'll love him anyway. There's a small mercy there, in certainty.

The knot in his stomach doesn't unwind. 

"C'mon, hotshot." Molly wears nicknames and push of her hands the way he does his glasses half-mast. Knowing when to look; knowing when not to push. 

He rolls out of bed with a wince at the damp cling of his shirt, but Molly's hand is firm on the middle of his back, steering him. He knows better than to protest, to even suggest he could sleep on the sofa. She pulls him into the bathroom and slides her hands under his thin shirt while the water runs into the tub. 

(Over his long, ugly scar that she's traced a hundred times before. Doesn't matter. Hers, now.) 

"Up." His arms follow her command and she tugs his shirt over his head, resting her head against his shoulder the minute it's gone. He buries his nose in her hair, inhaling lemongrass and sweet and  _safe,_ and his breath catches as her nails skate his hipbones and she takes his shorts off, too. 

"M-Molly." Will swallows, tongue betraying him entirely, and Molly just smiles and pulls away to shut the water off. 

"You getting in or do I need to push you?" 

The water's hot and Will sinks in slowly - and his body seems to recall immediately that he'd been asleep, that he's  _exhausted._

He waits for Molly to join him, but she sits on the floor instead, leaning against the edge of the tub with her fingers dangling in the water. He watches her pick a soap from the counter, as she dabs it into her palms and starts at his shoulders.

He feels better. Can't remember clearly, here, what the voice in his dream had said.

(He still knows, of course, whose it was.) 

"...Time is it?" Will blurts at the ceiling, too warm for complete sentences. 

Molly's voice is sleepy too, a sigh curled against his arm. "I have to open the store in two hours." 

Will groans.  _Five thirty in the morning._ No point in going back to bed. Guilt threatens, and Molly splashes him with bath water that slops over to the floor.

"Shut it. You're important too." 

"I didn't  _say_  anything." Will grouses halfheartedly, knowing too well how she can read him, and she reaches to tangle her soap-stained fingers in his hair. 

"We still have a while before Willy gets up for school, you know." 

Will swallows. Molly's hand drifts against his thigh. 

He'll ache all day, later, dog tired at the boatyard. Molly will call him on her lunch, half her words lost in yawning, wondering if they have time on both their breaks to make it home for coffee. 

( _And kissing,_ she'll add.  _Probably a lot of that.)_

But here, Molly's settling her weight against him with her hands pressing him back against the tub, teeth finding his bottom lip. He lets his fingers card through her hair, matting its rough tangles til they cling to both of them. 

They decided it was worth it a long time ago. 


End file.
